


Climbing to the Light

by particolored_socks



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Crossover, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Fantasy Violence, Gen, Harry Potter alternate universe, M/M, Multi, Rating May Change, Slow Build, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-25 09:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 16,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4955434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/particolored_socks/pseuds/particolored_socks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just before Voldemort's first rise to power, 11-year-old Fantine receives an acceptance letter from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic -- a letter that will pull her into a new world full of just as much danger and prejudice as the one she left behind. (updates on weekends)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fantine receives a life-changing letter, and meets a few life-changing people.

**10** **Août** **, 1969. Montreuil-sur-mer.**

Here: an eleven year old girl, blonde hair muddied, elbows scraped, sprawled out in the gutter. Her mouth is bloody; she spits, and the glob that lands on the ground is bloody too. The other children jeer at her, and call her names, and she flings insults back at them like she was born to it. Perhaps she was.

They call her freak, mostly. She is more than half inclined to believe them, but that doesn’t stop her from telling them what exactly she thinks of their mothers.

When they are gone, scampering back to their homes and their parents for lunch, she picks herself up and dusts herself off and she trails muddy footprints back to the orphanage. A sister will cluck her tongue and scold her, as per usual, and another sister will give her a firm spanking, probably. And everyone will tell her that this is why you haven’t been adopted yet, Marguerite, you are far too scrappy for a girl your age.

She is still unaccustomed to the name Marguerite. The nuns were the ones who gave it to her, after all, and that a mere five years ago. The name she calls herself, inside of her head, is Fantine – that name was given to her by a passersby when she was only a toddler in the streets, and that was the name that stuck to her like glue. A good Christian name like Marguerite for a good Christian girl, but Fantine is first and foremost an urchin.

Oh, she is fairly certain that she believes in God and Jesus Christ, and she sings along with the hymns, and she would pray every night before bed even if there weren’t nuns telling her to do it. But she swears too much, and definitely she fights too much, to ever be a _good_ Christian.

And indeed the nuns scold her along the same lines as she had predicted; and overall, Fantine thinks as Sister Simplice is ferociously scrubbing her scalp in the bath, overall today is a very normal day indeed.

But then one of the other nuns comes in and murmurs something in Sister Simplice’s ear, and suddenly Simplice is frowning the likes of which Fantine has never seen before. After Fantine is dressed again, the nun wordlessly hands her a letter.

The letter is not addressed to Marguerite Louet. It is addressed, in light blue ink, simply to “Fantine of the orphanage of Ste Thérèse”.

After that her life begins, very rapidly, to change.

 

**20 Août, 1969. Paris.**

Sister Simplice walks her to the train station. They do not speak, but then again, they have probably already said everything worth saying.

Somehow one week’s worth of shopping for a school you didn’t know existed in a _world_ you didn’t know existed brings two people closer than they were before.

The letter from Monsieur Myriel listed, in exquisite detail, all of the requirements that Fantine would need. This included blue silk robes, an iron standard size cauldron, and, of all things, a wand. At the very bottom of the letter there was an appendix describing where Fantine might find these items.

The appendix had said: “There is an alley behind the café Musain in Paris, at the place Saint-Michel. Simply tap on the windowsill and ask for Mlle Baptistine.”

Sister Simplice had accompanied her, and Fantine could tell from the way Simplice gripped her hand when the alley disappeared that she badly wanted to swear. Fantine swore twice as much to compensate for her.

It remained Paris, but now it was Paris in Technicolor.

The shopping commenced in a whirlwind. Fantine dragged Simplice from place to place, almost squawking in delight, staring at the windows filled with strange clothing and devices and foods. And though they had to go to a bank, and the goblins ( _goblins!_ ) gave both Fantine and Simplice the haughtiest looks imaginable, still they produced a little bronze key for her and gave her a vault of her very own in which to cache some of her newly-converted sorcerer’s silver.

The goblins made it clear that she was given a vault only because of new government funding. Fantine, who has lived her whole life off of government funding, finds herself relieved that magical France works the same as non-magical France in this regard. As the France of Moldus.

There: amidst all the other shining things she has learned, she has learned the word _Moldu_ , which means non-magical person. A dun word against the gold.

But Sister Simplice, who has been the kindest and most patient with Fantine out of all the flurry of the past ten days, though she is a Moldu, is perhaps the most important person in Fantine’s world at this moment, and not dun at all. At the train station they together find the phone booth with a blue asterisk mark above the door; and after they walk through onto Platform 10.33, and they find her a seat on the train and tuck her two pieces of luggage onto the rack, Fantine leaps up and gives her a fierce hug.

“Thank you, Sister,” she whispers. “For everything. Thank you.”

Sister Simplice nods and swallows hard, and hands her a little silver crucifix. “May God watch over you, child. Always. And – write letters, for Heaven’s sake!”

Fantine promises to do so, and hugs her one last time as the whistle blows, and dashes back on board the train just before the doors close.

She waves at Simplice through the window as the train begins to move, and scrubs her eyes viciously with the heel of her hand. This is no time for tears.

“You cut it really close, didn’t you.”

Fantine turns to see a ganglingly tall boy with folded arms and a sour expression on his face. He is dark, from his black hair to his swarthy skin to the squeaky-clean if threadbare sneakers he is wearing – all save the eyes, bright disconcerting silver-gray amid the dark. And _tall_ , did she mention tall? She can almost feel herself getting a crimp in her neck from looking up at him.

“Maybe I cut it a little close, but I made it on the train, didn’t I?” she says.

He makes a disapproving sound. “And if you hadn’t?”

She shrugs defensively. “Well, I did, so it doesn’t matter.”

He rolls his eyes and walks away, down into another train car. She watches him go.

“It’s alright, he treats everyone that way.”

Fantine turns again, and there’s another boy, this one with sandy hair and a charming grin. “My name is Tholomyès. Félix Tholomyès. What’s yours?”

“Fantine,” she says, and stares a little when he offers her a hand to shake. “Just … Fantine.”

“That’s a pretty name. Pretty name for a pretty girl.” The charming smile turns dazzling. “I’ve never seen you before. Are you a first year student?”

“Are you hitting on me?” Fantine says, incredulous.

“Only if it works,” he says glibly.

Something about this Félix Tholomyès repulses her deeply. Self-preservation instincts kick in.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she says, “but I really must go to the bathroom,” and walks purposefully in the opposite direction.

 

**20 Août, 1969. Beauxbatons.**

It is night, now, but there are so many twinkling lights set in the trees that it might as well be day. Dove-white horses are harnessed to robin’s-egg-blue carriages, and Fantine climbs into the nearest empty carriage with something like stars in her eyes. All of this feels more like a fairytale than anything else, now. She had asked another girl about her luggage and the girl had replied that the luggage took itself to the castle, silly; and so she had left it. Walking luggage, for God’s sake!

The carriages seem to glide up the lawn to the castle. Fountains, statues, and lush gardens abound; and those tiny white lights are strung about like tinsel, sparkling merrily; and when Fantine shuffles into the entrance hall with all the other first years, she is very nearly overwhelmed. Sweeping marble stairs, bright tapestries, stained glass – a fairy tale indeed! How could such a raggedy street urchin as Fantine ever belong in such a place as this! During the train ride she had exchanged her tweed skirt and cotton button-down for blue silk robes, and now she half expects everything, uniform and castle and walking luggage and all, to disappear at midnight just like in the tale of Cendrillon.

The first years are directed to form a single-file line, and after the inevitable five minutes of blatant disregard for instructions as is common with eleven-year-olds everywhere, an old man sitting at the table on the raised dais stands and raises his hand. “Professor Myriel,” one of the other first years whispers, and silence drops over the hall.

“Good evening,” says the old man, and even from a distance Fantine can see his eyes twinkle. “And what a pleasure it is to see all of you back again for another year, safe and sound. It is my honor to welcome this year’s new students – I hope each of you will find the knowledge you seek, and more.

“I must warn you, however, that knowledge and its pursuit are not for the faint of heart. Very often you will find that the answers to your questions are ones that you do not like, or even expect. But this is the hazard of enlightenment; and after all, the fifth element, after the four traditional ones, is surprise.” He smiles. “Enough of my nattering,” he continues cheerfully. “Let us sort through our new arrivals! Professor de Courfeyrac?”

A middle-aged woman, plump and cheerful, stands before the staff table and with a flourish of her wand, conjures something small and shining out of the air, which she then holds up for the crowd of students to see. A brief bout of applause sounds. Fantine shifts onto her tiptoes to peer at it.

“What is it?”

“That’s the Ring, it is!” says a voice behind her. She turns to see a tall red-haired girl with a million freckles and a smug smile, clearly pleased to know more about the proceedings than Fantine does. “You put it on, and it changes color to show you which House you’ll be in.”

Professor de Courfeyrac filters through the list of students in alphabetical order, pointing them to one of three long tables in turn. Fantine waits, doubtful. Her letter was addressed to “Fantine” only, and not with the name the nuns’ orphanage had given her. Would she appear under L? Would she appear at all? Maybe all of this is one gigantic trick they’re playing on her. Pretty elaborate trick, but life’s dealt her a bad enough hand already. It wouldn’t surprise her.

Halfway through the L section, de Courfeyrac calls her. She makes her way up to the dais and does her best not to scowl at everybody; and de Courfeyrac offers her the Ring.

She takes it, holding it between index finger and thumb, just looking at it for a moment. It’s fancy, almost gaudy: a band of gold with curlicues and probably Latin scrawled around the outside, with a clear stone set in. It looks much too small to fit even on her pinky finger. She holds it to her ring finger, doubtful – and then it does expand, like no solid metal ever should, and slips on easy as you please. Then a voice makes itself heard just behind her ear.

_You’ll live for love and die for love, never mind right and wrong … stubborn, yes, and lazy too, and yet willing to strive and even fight for what you believe in. A bundle of contradictions, you! Hot-headed and hot-blooded. Yes, I know exactly where to put you._

She can feel herself melting into a puddle of embarrassment in her shoes. Did the whole school hear that voice? – but it seems not even the pleasant Professor de Courfeyrac, hovering by her elbow, has heard the horrifically rude proclamation.

The stone in the Ring turns bright ruby red.

“Pathos!”

The third of the students with red badges pinned to their lapels cheers. De Courfeyrac smiles and holds out a hand, and Fantine is only too glad to wrench the damned piece of jewelry off her finger and give it to the woman, and be shepherded where she will.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There isn't very much information about Beauxbatons out there, even on Pottermore, so I'm basically making this up as I go along. Hopefully it makes sense.
> 
> If anybody needs translations of French terms, I'll be happy to put them in.

**27 Août, 1969. Beauxbatons.**

Why in the world does a bathroom need a password? 

Her classes are scattered throughout the castle. The first year Pathos students flock from class to class, sharing maps and muttering to each other, and Fantine finds herself lagging behind not because the classes themselves are uninteresting – magic is amazing, and there is so much of it to learn; or that her classmates are unbearable – most of them are rather agreeable, especially Marthe the red-haired girl; but that the castle is too enchanting to just whiz through. Marthe and Dahlia and the others swish from class to class as though they were raised in the castle. They seem not to notice the moving paintings and talking statues, or the extravagant rococo style that Fantine had previously only seen in art history books. Fantine has spent all of Saturday wandering around the castle and all of Sunday too, constantly amazed at the beauty and wonder of it all.

Though right now, she is only amazed that she needs a password in order to visit the bathroom.

“Look,” she tells the door, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kick you. I just –”

“What are you doing?”

She spins around. The tall boy from the train is standing in front of her, his arms crossed again and a scowl on his face. “That’s a prefects’ bathroom. Normal students aren’t allowed.”

And indeed, there’s a small gleaming badge with a _P_ pinned on his worn silk robes, right next to the royal blue Logos badge. Fantine tries to not look guilty. “Look, I didn’t know. I … might have gotten a little lost.”

He raises an eyebrow. The expression is of perfect disdain. “Got lost doing what?”

“Wandering around. Just looking.” She huffs a little. “I didn’t think wandering around was against the rules.”

He rolls his eyes and turns to go. But for some reason she isn’t finished talking to him. “Weren’t you ever amazed by this place?” she demands.

He stops.

“It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.” She gestures around. “The gardens are just like Versailles, and the fountains, and – but it’s not all gilt, it’s – refined, and tasteful, and the paintings _talk_ and so do the statues, and –”

“You’re née-Moldu, aren’t you?” he asks.

What a question! Surprise bounces an honest answer out of her. “I don’t know. I never knew my parents. But I was raised by nuns.”

His frown softens around the edge, and he grunts. “Moldu nuns? I guess that explains it.”

“What? Why does that explain it?”

He brushes his bangs out of his eyes and shrugs. The movement is surprisingly loose for someone who looks like he was carved from wood. “Well, first of all, all pictures move. You being surprised at that, well, that’s Moldu right there. And you being surprised at the castle, that’s nuns for you. God’s supposed to be the height of beauty, yeah? But they keep themselves buttoned up tighter than a duck’s arse." 

“Churches are really pretty, though,” she says. “The stained glass and all.”

He shrugs again. “Only some of them.”

Fair enough. The tiny chapel at Ste Thérèse was no Notre Dame. “Well, what about you?” she asks. “Your parents? What are they like?" 

He opens his mouth; but to scoff, or to answer just as candidly as she did, she will not know. The softness, as soon as it came, disappears again. He shrugs jerkily, a wall closing over his silver eyes, and then he disappears around a corner.

“He saw me coming.”

She spins around again, and now leaning against the wall is a student with a green Ethos badge, mournful blue eyes, and a livid scar crossing his nose and down one cheek. He looks vaguely familiar, but she can’t quite place him yet. “He does that a lot when I’m around,” the student continues. “I’m kind of a bad omen to him, I guess.” He smiles. “My name is Jean Valjean. What’s yours?”

“Fantine Louet.” She nods back at the direction the first boy went. “Who is he?”

“Oh. That’s Javert.”

“Javert … what?”

“Just Javert. I don’t think he has a given name.”

A boy without a given name? She would think it ridiculous, except that technically she has no given name either. “Why does he think you’re a bad omen?" 

 “Welll …” He draws the syllable out awkwardly. “It’s kind of … a long story.”

She shrugs. “I’ve got time.”

“I don’t think you’ve got enough time.” He shifts, twiddles his thumbs; his hands are big, she notices, big and rough like the rest of him, as if he were hewn from a boulder. But a shy boulder – his sad eyes refuse to look at her, and his giant shoulders curve inward like a shield.

“Alright, I guess not,” she says aloud. He visibly relaxes, and she has to actively prevent herself from rolling her eyes. “Well, anyway. You’re not a prefect either. What are you doing here?”

“I just like wandering around the castle.” He offers her another smile, this one warmer. “I’m trying to see if I can memorize it. There’s a few corridors I can walk around with my eyes closed, but I want to see if I can do it with all of them one day.”

“Why?”

“My little sister, Jeanne.” He catches the look on her face and laughs. “Yes, Jean and Jeanne Valjean, I know. My family’s not very imaginative when it comes to names. But anyway, she’s only ten and she’s very nervous about coming to Beauxbatons next year. She doesn’t want to get lost. So I’m trying to memorize the floor plans so I can walk with her wherever she needs to go.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Do you have any siblings?” he asks.

Now her smile turns crooked. “I don’t think you’ve got enough time for the answer.”

“… Ah.”

They spend a few awkward moments coughing and shuffling their feet before he finally nods at her. “Well, I’ll see you around, I guess.”

“When?” she says, perplexed. “You’re not a first year, are you?”

He looks almost offended. “Sixth year. I’m Professor Maxime’s student aide in first year Charms.”

“Oh! That’s you?” There had been a student standing by the professor’s desk during class, taking notes, but anyone would be dwarfed next to the titanic Professor Maxime; she had hardly noticed the boy. And now she has a face and a name to go with. “I guess I will.” 

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

That night Fantine prods Marthe awake with her wand. The big girl rolls over and gives her a bleary glare. “What?”

“Marthe. Do you know who Javert is?”

She yawns and stretches, scratches her nose. “Him? He’s like an automaton. He’s not actually a person.”

“Yes he is. I met him today.”

Marthe yawns again. “Well, he doesn’t act like a person. He’s obsessed with the rules or something. He’s on some weird justice crusade, wants to be an Auror when he graduates. I heard Myriel made him a prefect because that was the only thing anyone could do to shut him up.”

“Where did you hear that?” Fantine asks.

“Favourite Yves. She knows everything.”

“Favourite Yves?” Dahlia. “She’s in Logos. Her dad’s a member of the AFS. She’s richer than Croesus.”

“The AFS?”

“The Académie française des sorciers. They make sure there are French words for magical stuff, like Quidditch and that. God, Fantine, don’t you know anything?”

“No,” Fantine murmurs. “I guess not.”

“You’re not …”

Dahlia sounds reluctant to finish.

“… née-Moldu, are you?”

The temperature in the room drops. Suddenly it seems like every girl in the dormitory is awake and waiting for Fantine’s answer.

“No,” Fantine says, and the tension vanishes. It could be true, she tells herself. I just don’t know for sure. 

“Well,” says Marthe, “you better watch out, all the same.”

_Watch out for what?_ Fantine wants to ask. But now she knows better than to ask questions.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At Beauxbatons, the edict not to go into the Forest is enforced much more strictly.

**8** **Septembre** **, 1969. Beauxbatons.**

Here: a sixteen year old boy, rough-hewn, more mountain than boy, whose big hands are better suited to hard labor in the Herbology greenhouses than delicate wandwork in Charms class. He’s not as good at Herbology as you’d think, though. Out of fear of starving them, he overwaters the plants; and all the fiddly differences between perennial and annual, shade and half-shade, positively escape him.

He sticks with Herbology, though, because what he really wants to do is be a Healer. And because Professor Mabeuf is the only professor aside from Maxime and Myriel who Valjean knows and trusts with the Secret. 

The Secret has earned its capital letter. He has carried it ever since he was eight years old, and he has gotten as good at hiding it as anyone can be; better, in the five years he’s been at Beauxbatons, because the Headmaster has helped to carry the burden. It’s amazing what a little forgiveness can do. Forgiveness, and some silver.

Today Professor Mabeuf approaches him after class. The man is young, thirty years old at most, though he looks older; his hair is prematurely streaked with silver and his face creased with laugh lines. But today he looks positively boyish with cheer.

They sit in his office just outside the greenhouses. The room is small, but a large window lets in the autumn sun, illuminating the massive library piled around the desk and chairs. Jean perches on Volumes V-VIII of Carnivorous Plants of South America and nurses his cup of tea. “You wanted to see me, Professor?”

Mabeuf smiles and leans over his desk conspiratorially. “I’ve had some excellent news. A friend of a friend’s colleague over in England is working on something that I think might just help you with your condition.”

“What, you mean –” Jean can never quite bring himself to say the actual words. It’s superstitious, he knows, but he can’t help it. But Mabeuf is nodding just the same. 

“It’s terribly tricky – he’s mostly doing research for now – but I feel confident that in a few years …”

“You really mean …?”

“Yes, Jean.” Mabeuf’s smile widens, and for a moment it equals the sun. “You could be cured.”

Jean has never heard more beautiful words.

 

**12 Septembre, 1969. The Pyrenees.**

There are words that someone said to him only a few days ago, that filled him with hope, but words mean nothing, and hope means less than nothing. He struggles to remember – he struggles to retain his sense of self – but only moments later his self has disappeared. 

The moonlight bleeds over the trees, casting stark shapes of white and blue-black on the loamy ground. He throws himself against trees and down steep slopes, scratching and lashing out against the rocks, howling in anguish, in loneliness, in that constant intolerable pain. The forest is quieter than graves except for his heavy breathing; every woodland creature, every animal that has not taken refuge in the ground or in the trees, has frozen with fear. He can smell it reeking like sewage.

Like this, he is a prisoner to every violent instinct. Like this, he is a dumb brute, knowing nothing but malice, living from moment to moment, hating everything he sees. Even the moon.

Especially the moon.

When the moonlight finally ebbs he convulses once more, but the second time is always worse than the first. Because when his self comes back, then he remembers everything that happened, only now with the burden of guilt.

He blames himself. An eight year old child shielded his baby sister from a beast and got bitten himself, and has plagued his family ever since. Little Jeannette has done her best with a monster of an older brother, but Jean knows the kind of rumors that have spread about him back home. He is only glad that at Beauxbatons Myriel has seen fit to grant him this space in the wood, this fresh start, where Jeanne will not have a monster’s shadow trailing her everywhere she goes. 

Mabeuf comes in the morning with a thick blanket, a change of clothes, and a mug of warm chocolate. By breakfast Jean is properly human again, his silver medallion tucked safely under his robes, even if he does have a few more bruises and scratches than he did the day before.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not a bone-crushing cart, but it'll do.
> 
> Or:
> 
> Javert is Javert, no matter which universe he's in.

**14 Septembre, 1969. Beauxbatons.**

Here: a lanky fifteen year old boy, scowl permanently fixed to his face and arms perpetually folded behind his back, leaning against a door and handing out sardonic comments like grandparents hand out candies. Babet appears to ignore it but that certainly won’t stop him. It’s a shame, really. If only Babet would listen to the professor, pull his shit together, he could actually be good at Defense. As it is, Babet’s probably only good for sneaking around and robbing corpses.

Ah, no, that’s Thénardier. Well. The two of them could be brothers, for all they have the same ratty suspicious features and mannerisms.

Javert, though, he’s a wolf. At least according to the rumors. He’s heard them all, of course. Automaton, robot, vampire, golem, werewolf, dementor, homunculus, each one implying he’s a soul-sucking fun-hating inhuman bastard. They’re only half right. He almost wishes they were entirely right. It would be so much _easier_ if he weren’t human. But werewolf … that’s the most bitter irony right there. Because Javert is sure – almost sure – that he knows someone who actually is.

Childhood is a series of traps and pitfalls for someone like Javert. He was born in the 1950s, less than a decade after Grindelwald had finished terrorizing Europe; he cannot blame his parents for that, but he certainly can blame them for being inept parents. The rumor that Javert has no given name is one that he does not put a stop to because it is true. But somewhere in the murk of childhood memory, carefully repressed, is a sliver of moonlight. It’s been eight years, more or less; this is a memory not preserved voluntarily but seared into the mind’s eye. When you are seven or eight years old, it is very hard to forget the sight of so much blood.

The beast had been killed. Of that they had been assured. Still, several families moved away from town as quickly as they could after that, including the family of the victim. Whether the boy lived or died they did not know; but Javert, seven or eight, had remembered the blood and had asked his mother how someone could live having lost that much. “There’s ways,” she had said, clicking her tongue and reshuffling the deck. “Pick a card.”

The Tower – destruction, change.

“But that means it could go either way,” he had protested. “Why can’t Divination ever give a real answer?”

“There are no real answers.”

His first year at Beauxbatons, when he saw the boy with a livid scar across his face, he began to wonder. There are other ways to get tremendous scars like that – getting mauled by a bear, maybe – but how likely is that? Javert hasn’t asked. There are some questions you don’t ask because you would rather not be lied to; and there are some questions you don’t ask because you dread being told the truth.

 

**27 Septembre, 1969. Beauxbatons.**

Potions class is hell. Potions class has always been hell. Potions class will always be hell.

The concoction simmering in the cauldron turns first dirt-brown, then roiling putrescent green, and Javert has to suppress the desire to snarl and flip something over. He’s made it to ASPIC-level Potions out of sheer unadulterated willpower, for years sacrificing his nights and his breakfasts to poring over notes and textbooks. And still _every time_ he makes a potion he has to royally fuck it over first. Worse, he’s been paired with Pontmercy for this class. Honestly!

Georges Pontmercy is, to put it kindly, a dolt. They’re both studying to become Aurors when they graduate Beauxbatons, and frankly Javert can understand that the force needs paper shufflers; but the fact of the matter is that while Georges Pontmercy would make an excellent paper shuffler, he is also excellent at rushing headlong into that which he believes to be right, and damn the evidence to the contrary. As currently exhibited by the hissing smoke streaming from the cauldron and misting up Pontmercy’s thick-lensed glasses.

“Damn,” Pontmercy says, and droops. “I was sure we were supposed to put in the essence of dittany next.”

“No, really?” Javert says, withering sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “I can’t imagine.”

“What’s got your wand in a knot, eh?” Pontmercy peers at him, placidly poking the bubbling mess with his wand. “Not that Valjean again? What’s he done?”

“—nothing.”

“Well, I don’t believe that, Javert, I really don’t.” The mess dealt with, he starts the potion over, patient as anything. “You don’t ever hate people, not without a reason. When Brujon beat up that girl last year, Veronique Leclair, and you hauled him by the ear to Myriel’s office? That was the angriest I’d ever seen you and that’s the truth. So Valjean must have really done something to make you hate him so much.”

“I don’t hate him.” And he doesn’t. Javert doesn’t lie. If you slipped Veritaserum in his food, he’d continue talking like nothing had happened and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. “He just reminds me of someone.”

“Must be someone pretty awful to make you avoid him so much.”

Javert shoots him a glare, but Pontmercy just smiles at him, bland and affable. There’s that to be said about Georges, at least; he’s absolutely harmless. Even fluffy baby puppies have more mean bones in their bodies than Georges does.

 

**30 Septembre, 1969. Beauxbatons.**

In later days, and months – and yes, probably years later they will still be talking about it, teenagers being horrible gossips – students will dub it The Incident.

People are nasty suspicious bastards. Javert counts himself one of the most suspicious bastards he knows, and takes pride in it. But if anything can be said for this boy who wishes he were anything but human, it is that he is not nasty. And nastiness is what lies immediately before him, composed like a Renaissance painting.

In the foreground: students clustered thick like flies on a corpse, watching, gossiping, shocked and awed, above all enjoying the show.

In the background: a few astonished faces, though the malice still remains; some of them Javert recognizes. Smoke, damning, accusatory, floats toward the ceiling.

In the middle distance: the caretaker, cranky but harmless old Fauchelevent, on the ground. And Jean Valjean beside him, clearly shielding the old man from whatever curse is still fizzling from Brujon’s wand.

Fauchelevent, sprawled on the ground, eyes wide with shock, is mumbling a steady stream of nonsense – “didn’t mean trouble, didn’t have to, boy, what did you go and do that for” – and Valjean, crouched with pain, is cradling his arm against his chest. Almost idiotically Javert focuses in on the blood dripping from the older boy’s arm. Why is blood always brighter red than you expect it to be?

God fucking _dammit_ , Brujon. Myriel should have expelled you _last year_.

Babet cackles wetly and slaps his back. “Good one, Brujon. Too bad you didn’t get his ugly mug, hey? But this way he’ll have matching scars!”

Valjean doesn’t respond to the jeering. He grits his teeth and reaches out with his good hand to help old Fauchelevent up.

“Didn’t have to, boy,” Fauchelevent repeats. He casts a terrified, humiliated look over at them. Brujon laughs, spits, and raises his wand again. And no one else does or says _anything_ except _watch_.

“ _Petrificus Totalus!_ ”

Brujon falls flat on his face. The crowd erupts in embarrassed laughter. Javert cuts through, a shark among minnows, and grabs Babet before he can slip away.

“Oh, come on,” Babet says, suddenly all oil and honey. “We were just having a bit of fun.”

“Fun usually doesn’t involve cursing other people,” Javert says stonily.

“It wasn’t me that did it, it was all him!”

“You could have stopped him from doing it. You didn’t. You laughed.”

“Come on,” Babet whines again. “It’s not like he _died_ or anything.”

But all the wheedling in the world will not wear Javert down. He barks out a command for someone to take Valjean to the hospital wing and does not wait to find out if anyone heeds him; instead he drags Babet up to Myriel’s office, levitating the petrified, fuming Brujon behind him, and God help whoever gets in his way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rumormongering.

**1 Octobre, 1969. Beauxbatons.**

In Charms class Valjean is there as usual to help Professor Maxime, but he is pale under his tan, his expression and voice subdued; the tail end of a gauze bandage creeps out from the sleeve of his robe.

“Madame Magloire did her best,” Marthe whispers behind her, “but I heard from Éloise Lefèvre that he’s got a great big scar now, practically from his elbow to his wrist.”

“That’s absurd,” hisses Dahlia, to her right. “If it was that big he would have fainted from blood loss. I should know, my dad’s a Healer.”

“Why would they curse Valjean, though?” Fantine murmurs. Professor Maxime shoots a sharp glance at the knot of girls, and they fall silent. Someone coughs. The lecture resumes, as does the sound of quills scratching away on parchment.

A curl of paper flicks onto Fantine’s desk.

_Brujon didn’t mean to curse V, though, he was aiming for the Cracmol_

Fantine knows she shouldn’t ask. But she does anyway.

_What’s a Cracmol?_

_parbleu, Fantine, don’t you know anything?_ Here something is scribbled out. _Cracmol = nonmagic person born to magical parents_

She feels sick. Crumples up the paper. Doesn’t answer.

A quill tickles the back of her neck. Marthe. “Fantine? Fantine. Are you alright?”

She stares straight ahead. Valjean, chalking up the shape of a Levitating Charm, catches her gaze and smiles a little. She constructs the image in her mind’s eye: Brujon casting the curse, the Cracmol (whoever they are) unsuspecting, Valjean leaping in front of them, using himself as a shield. A curse – not a charm, not a jinx, not even a hex, but a curse. Fantine’s read through her Spell Primer. Curses are the worst of the lot. What kind of person decides to curse someone else just because they aren’t magical?

“’M fine.”

She catches him after class.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?”

He glances at Professor Maxime. “—Yeah. Sure.”

“I heard about … what happened.” Her hands twist together for a moment. “How you jumped in front of the curse.”

“Oh. I. Yeah.” He scratches his neck and laughs, quiet, nervous. “Well. I couldn’t just watch it happen. Someone had to do something.”

“You mean everybody was watching that guy curse the Cracmol and no one else did anything?” she asks, terrified.

A strange look crosses his face. “You can call him by his name, you know. He’s not just a Cracmol. He cleans up this castle every single day, makes sure everything runs perfectly. People treat him terribly but he’s just doing his job.”

“… Fauchelevent? The caretaker?”

“Yes.” His words are short now, snapped off, almost irritated. “Call him by his name.”

“I didn’t know,” she protests. “I didn’t know that was him. And look – I’m not judging him for being what he is. Why should I?”

“Why shouldn’t you? Everyone else does.”

“Because I’m no different from him!”

The words are loud in the nearly-empty classroom. Professor Maxime looks up from her desk, blinks slowly, and returns to her papers. Fantine turns beet red. Valjean folds his arms across his chest and stares.

“Sorry?”

She’s got to be brighter red than when the damned Ring told her she’d die for love. “I don’t mean – I’m not a – Cracmol.” She quails for a moment under his flat stare, then rallies again. “I mean, I don’t know who my parents are. I was raised by Moldus. So whether I’m née-Moldu or not, I might as well be.”

“Oh.”

And that, apparently, is that. Whatever conversation Fantine had hoped to have is now quite thoroughly derailed. She bobs a nod to Professor Maxime, attempts a goodbye wave to Valjean, and promptly makes her escape.

 

**17 Octobre, 1969. Beauxbatons.**

Early morning seeps through the tinted windowpanes in the Ethos boys’ bathroom. Jean pokes at a fresh bruise on his jaw and hisses; finishes brushing his teeth for about the twelfth time; and looks at himself in the mirror with dismay.

He’s always been more bear than boy. Whether that’s part and parcel of the werewolf thing, he doesn’t know. But the distinctive scar on his face from way back when and the new scar on his arm from a few weeks ago certainly seem to add to the hulking ‘might maul you with his teeth’ look. At some point he’s going to have to give up trying to look presentable and just go live in the woods all the time.

“What are you doing?”

No one, at any time, ever wants to be caught examining themselves in the mirror. He jumps (only a little) and looks up to see the reflection of a tall boy with sandy hair and a dubious expression.

“Felix,” Jean says. He attempts to stifle a yawn and fails. “I was just –”

“You were out all last night, weren’t you?” Felix wrinkles his nose. “Lord, you smell funny.”

“I just – took an early morning stroll, that’s all. I like watching the sun rise.” That part’s true. Especially when it’s been a full moon the previous night. Like last night, for example. “Nothing special.”

“You mean you weren’t seeing anyone? A giiirl?” Felix draws out the syllable with a lecherous little grin. “Your hair’s all ruffled.”

“No!”

“And now you look like a ruffled boiled tomato.” Felix cups his elbow in one hand and sighs. He looks like some put-upon dandy from the 1800s. “A ruffled boiled tomato that fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Haven’t you tried any, I don’t know, charms or anything for those?” With a delicate index finger Felix gestures to the enormous scars.

“If I could change my face, Felix, believe me, I would have done it already,” Jean says wearily. He is far too tired to care. And anyway, Felix is always saying horrible things to everyone. You can’t take it personally. He turns to go. “Excuse me. I’m going to go take a nap before breakfast.”

“You know, you really ought to be more careful, Valjean.”

“What?”

“Jumping in front of people like that.”

Valjean turns back. Felix’s eyes are sharp on him. He says, slowly, deliberately, “Especially people like Fauchelevent. People might get the wrong idea about you.”

“Is my reputation worth an old man getting a faceful of this?” Valjean asks, lifting his arm up.

Felix Tholomyès shrugs. “I’m just saying. New and dangerous times are coming.”

“New and dangerous times are already here.”

 

**8 Novembre, 1969. Beauxbatons.**

“Alright, you little punk. Talk.”

Thénardier squirms. He always squirms. Probably he was born squirming.

“Look, it wasn’t me! It wasn’t me! Babet’s the one being all chummy with him. Go ask him!” 

“Babet’s not that stupid, and neither am I. _Talk_. Where did Brujon learn a curse like that?”

“How should I know? It’s not like he read it in a book. It’s not like he ever touches a book unless he’s going to hit someone with it.” A horrible little smirk crosses Thénardier’s face, something approaching cunning. “Maybe he just made it up, you know, special. For the occasion.”

Javert watches him carefully, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, made it up?”

“I mean, Brujon’s really good at improvising.” Thénardier attempts to escape, and Javert jabs his wand in the kid’s chest. Thénardier makes an exasperated whining sound. “Look, I don’t know what you want with me! I’m small fry! He wouldn’t have anything to do with me if I wasn’t friends with Babet!”

“Brujon?”

“Yeah, yeah, Brujon’s the mastermind, I’m not even part of that gang, alright?”

He’s whining now, desperate, and this is probably the part Javert likes best. Thénardier throws out lies and truth like there’s no difference between them in the hopes of covering his own ass, and it’s up to Javert to sift through it all. Oh, he could probably get the Headmaster’s permission to use Veritaserum – or, much more probably, he should be letting the Headmaster handle all of this. But Headmaster Myriel is altogether too merciful when it comes to scumbags like these.

Doling out mercy is easy. Doling out justice – that’s hard. And he intends to be both rock and hard place.

“What gang?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fantine makes a new friend before winter break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the hiatus! I have the next five chapters or so outlined, so updates should be a lot more frequent from here on out.

**23 Novembre, 1969. Beauxbatons.**

Snow blankets the Pyrenees in white. Little fairy lights twinkle in the bare grey trees and topiary in the grounds, and the marble statues in the lawns shine with frost. The castle itself resembles a confection of spun sugar. If Beauxbatons looked like a fairytale in autumn, it looks like the fairy queen’s wildest dreams now. Fantine can’t help gazing out the windows during her classes, imagining the biggest and best of snowball fights to mess up those pristine white lawns. 

During one particularly boring History of Magic class, Fantine flicks a scrap of paper onto Marthe’s desk.

_Want to build a snowman after class?_

The answer is immediate.

_Yes!!_

A gaggle of girls meet outside the manicured topiary labyrinth in the southern grounds. Marthe, from the south, is bundled up to her ears; Fantine, accustomed to the wintry northern winds, has only a scarf and gloves over the usual outdoor cloak. Immediately one of the older girls cups her mittened hands around her mouth and hollers:

“Competition to build the biggest snowman!”

“You’re on, Gillenormand!” shouts another girl. They head over to a snow bank, whooping, and Marthe and Fantine and Dahlia race over towards the nearest hedge to begin their construction.

It’s hot and sweaty work, even in the chill, especially for children who have become accustomed to waving magic wands about to do all their work. But when Fantine begins immediately to roll snow into a ball, the other girls dive into it with just as much enthusiasm. Soon enough they have a tall, if lumpy, snowman – with branches broken off the hedge for arms, and Dahlia’s empty inkwell for a nose.

Gillenormand troops up to inspect their snowman. She’s a tall girl, a fifth year, with spectacles balanced on her snub nose and bright laughing eyes. She pokes the inkwell nose, wrinkles her own, and laughs out loud. Reaches out a hand to scrub at Fantine’s hair, affectionately. “Good work, kids. That’s a big snowman.”

She turns to the other fifth year Pathos girl, presumably to say something, but a snowball flies out of nowhere and smacks her in the shoulder. They turn.

This girl is even taller. She’s holding her wand jauntily between two fingers, levitating another snowball, and grinning wide enough to split her face in half. A big fluffy scarf in Logos blue is haphazardly wrapped around her neck.

“Oh, you are on!” cries Gillenormand. She flicks out her own wand and with it conjures her own snowball. “C’mon, Pathos, get her!”

The most glorious of snowball fights commences.

Fantine hasn’t had a good scrap since she got here. Two, almost three months without a single fight have had her spoiling for one; and now, given the opportunity, she throws herself into it with a howl of joy.

Soon enough, though, the rest of the girls stop fighting. It’s down to Fantine and the original challenger; and now, neither of them are using magic. The motions are instinctual, she can tell, for the older girl too; and, in the end, when both are too exhausted to carry on, the girl laughs and leaps forward to punch her shoulder.

“You’re a real brawler! What’s your name?”

“Fantine,” Fantine says, panting. “What’s yours?”

“Marianne Bahorel. You’re a first year?”

“Yeah.”

“God! Congratulations.” She grins. “You’re not auditioning for Quidditch next year, are you?”

“No?”

“You’d make a good Chaser. If you can throw a snowball like that, you’d have no problem with a Quaffle.”

Marianne Bahorel slaps her on the back, and trudges through the roughed-up snow to Gillenormand. “Hé, you, good match. And good job grabbing this one for Pathos!”

“Though she be but little, she is fierce,” says Gillenormand, and they grin at each other. “And how’ve you been?”

“Oh, good, good. Do you know, old Professor Bienvenue actually summoned me to his office the other day?”

“Christ. What did you do this time?”

“No, no, he was telling me about how he wants to make me a prefect next year.” Marianne grins wider. “Can you imagine?”

Gillenormand claps a hand over her mouth and giggles. “Oh, God. Javert would be –”

“—having kittens,” finishes Marianne. “I’m half inclined to take him up on it just on that account.”

“Are you! Next thing I know, you’ll want to be an Auror!”

“Now, now,” laughs Marianne, “that’s my little brother, remember. _I’ve_ no quarrel with Aurors.”

“Wouldn’t you look dashing in those silver robes,” Gillenormand teases; and whether the pink in her cheeks is from the cold or from something else, Fantine can’t tell.

A few minutes later, everyone is trooping indoors to head up to their respective dormitories. Marthe piles into a big squashy armchair, Dahlia plunking herself at her feet with a mug of chocolat. Fantine pokes at the fire with her wand.

“The way you two were fighting it looked like you were going to murder each other,” says Marthe. She peers up at Fantine. “Had you even met before?”

“No,” says Fantine.

“Hate at first sight!” drawls Dahlia, giggling. “Now that’s a way to make a new friend.”

“She seems nice,” Fantine says. She straightens up from the fire and goes to grab her own mug of chocolat. “She’s the first person I’ve met can actually hold a tie against me in a snowball fight.”

“You mean you do this all the time?” asks Marthe. Her eyes widen even more; she looks like a disheveled, freckled owl. “Attack people you barely know with snowballs?”

“Not always snowballs,” Fantine mutters to herself – not quietly enough, apparently, because Marthe exclaims:

“But what _for?_ ”

“Look, I don’t start it,” Fantine protests. “There’s just a lot of kids back home that are nasty little shits, and I’ve gotta teach them not to mess with me, don’t I? I don’t want them throwing _rocks_ at me, do I?”

The other girls are silent.

“Okay, it’s – it’s not that bad. And – and all right, I call them names too, and sometimes I do start it, so … so —”

“ _Moldus_ ,” says Dahlia, and she doesn’t just say it, she spits it out like a curse; like the curse that carved up Valjean’s arm.

 

**13 Décembre, 1969. Paris.**

The crush of students getting off the train is almost deafening. It’s a few good minutes of standing huddled in a group, making sure they don’t get trampled, before they can raise their voices loud enough to speak to each other.

Dahlia’s train to Brussels follows the same route as Fantine’s and Simplice’s to Montreuil-sur-mer, but she won’t tell Dahlia that. Somehow Fantine isn’t sure that Dahlia and Sister Simplice would be a good combination.

“Write to me,” says Marthe, almost aggressively. “So we can make sure you’re okay out there, with those horrible Moldu kids.”

“I’ll be fine,” says Fantine. They hug; Marthe, tall and big, a bear of a girl even if she’s only twelve, but she doesn’t crush her. “I will write,” she promises. “Maybe not every day, but I’ll write.”

“Good!” says Marthe, and smiles. She leaves the soonest – her train to Avignon via Lyon departs in only fifteen minutes.

Dahlia and Fantine say their goodbyes. And it is only then, when Fantine is certain that her friends are gone, that she makes her way to Gare du Nord and finds Sister Simplice at the little pastry shop outside the entrance.

Sister Simplice: tall and gangly, with a long pointed nose and circular spectacles with a beaded string attached so they won’t fall off. She’s standing off to one side by the tables, a canvas bag hanging from her shoulder, and a book in her hand; she’s frowning at it in concentration, peering through bifocals. Sister Simplice is only twenty-seven, twenty-eight at most, but her eyes went early.

She looks up now and sees Fantine, and the broad smile that stretches across her homely face warms Fantine like no roaring fire or mug of chocolat ever did.

Fantine flies over to her and Simplice catches her in a hug, and her book drops to the ground.

Later, on the train back to Montreuil-sur-mer, Simplice tucks her bag down by her sensible shoes and tells Fantine to tell her absolutely everything. And when they get back to the town, and they walk back to the orphanage of an evening, the sound of bells tolling for vespers is a prettier sound than Fantine remembers.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean, Javert, and Fantine spend some time at home.

**20 Décembre, 1969. Faverolles.**

“Taste this.”

Jean’s mother holds out a gougère for him. He takes the warm cheese pastry; and, after a few moments just savoring the home cooking, he nods vigorously. “Perfect, Maman.”

“Oh, good.” She smiles.

Mme Valjean has been through more than her share of woes, some of those owed to her monstrous son and some of them owed to her husband’s death about a decade ago; the fact that the events causing both happened so close together should have knocked her down, or out; but Mme Valjean is just as strong as her son, in this way at least. Her hair is going gray at her temple, and her face is careworn, but the crow’s feet at her eyes betray just as much laughter as sorrow.

Their kitchen is small, as is the rest of the cottage, but the cheap paint is a pretty pinky-orange color, and the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window brightens the handful of pressed wildflowers in a glass jar that Jeannette picked this summer.

Jeannette herself is outside at the moment, making snow angels and running around whooping and generally enjoying herself.

“What’s wrong?” his mother asks abruptly. Jean looks up at her. “Your arm. You keep rubbing it. Is something wrong?”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing,” says Jean. Quickly he glances down to make certain that his sleeve reaches all the way down to his wrist, but his mother notices, and she reaches over and pulls his sleeve up to the elbow.

“Jean,” she breathes. “What happened?”

He dares a look at her, and his heart twists violently in his chest. His mother’s gray eyes are silvered with tears, her smiling mouth turned down in a tight painful frown. Very gently she traces the ridges of the scar with one fingertip, almost hesitantly, as though her touch will open the wound again. “Jean,” she says again, and her voice is harder this time. “Who did this?”

He opens his mouth to speak and finds that his voice is gone. He clears his throat, nervous, licks his lips, and tries again. “It was just some kid, Maman.”

“ ‘Some kid’ _cursed_ you.”

“… He was aiming for someone else.”

“And you couldn’t have thrown up a Shield Charm instead?” She pulls up the chair next to him and leans forward, her expression pained and serious. “Jean, you can’t keep throwing yourself in front of other people. I’m sure the other person appreciated what you did, but _think_ for half a moment and use a spell instead. You’re in your sixth year, I’m sure you know some defensive spells by now.”

When he doesn’t respond, she sighs softly and brushes her fingers over the scar again. “What are we going to do with you?”

He doesn’t know the answer. To be frank, though he could explain to his mother about the politics of school, the danger of having a conscience, he would rather deal with it on his own.

She kisses his forehead and, giving him one last sad look, goes back and takes the last pan of gougères out of the oven.

Jeannette’s laughter filters through the window, unbroken.

 

**26 Décembre, 1969. Beauxbatons.**

The day after Christmas is always the quietest.

This is Javert’s fifth winter holiday spent at Beauxbatons. If it were possible, he would spend the summers here too; the cool mountains would be welcome respite from the stifling heat of southern France in summer, and besides, he would not have to go home and play hooky from his mother the whole time.

His father might as well be dead, for all intents and purposes. The man took off when Javert was about five, and his mother couldn’t be bothered to track him down. Though this was in ’59, when the war between France and Algeria was in full swing – so dear Papa, the one who had given Javert his dark hair and skin, might have been snapped up by the Moldu police. Again, not that Javert’s mother had bothered to care. She’d just placidly moved them from the bigger city of Grenoble to little Toulon, the unbearably sunny coast town where a spot of lycanthropy would find itself two or three years later.

Javert, patrolling the corridors out of sheer habit, finds himself mulling over it yet again; the murmuring of the portraits, the shifting in place of the marble statues, sets itself in perfect white-noise-accompaniment to his thoughts.

The day after Christmas is always the quietest, because, let’s be honest: everyone else is busy sleeping off the feast from the day before. Javert is usually the only person who doesn’t gorge himself at the midday meal and then hibernate through the following day. This year was a little different, though. At the table reserved for staff and the handful of students that stay in school for the holidays, Fauchelevent had picked at his food, pale and sullen, and barely eaten any.

Javert supposes that being saved from a curse should be cause for celebration, were it not for the fact that someone had wanted to curse him in the first place.

Javert is pure-blood magic, but he’s endured more than his fair share of sneers and jibes. He would feel a sort of companionship with Fauchelevent, perhaps, if he did not know that association with known targets would paint an equally large bullseye on his own back. Myriel dealt with Brujon, finally, but that won’t stop other students with similar views from trying the same thing.

Which begs the question of why Valjean did what he did. On the one hand, Javert understands and approves of the desire to shield innocents. But if Valjean had been trying to keep a low profile – for whatever reason, he insists to himself, not for a specific reason in particular – why would he do something so drastic as this, and make himself even more recognizable? Loath as he is to agree in any way with those scum, now Valjean does indeed have matching scars. The guy’s about as subtle as an anvil.

And he only jumped in front of Fauchelevent. Imagine what would have happened if Valjean had _attacked_ Brujon instead.

“Now _there’s_ a mental image,” he mutters.

“Bee in your bonnet, kid?” says a nearby portrait.

He turns and nails it with a glare. “None of your business.”

“None of my beeswax?” the portrait tries. Then, when his glare darkens, “Oh, lighten up, it’s Christmas!”

 

**2 Janvier, 1970. Montreuil-sur-mer.**

There’s a nook in the orphanage’s library, where the sun’s rays hit motes of dust perfectly and change them into tiny hovering amber flecks. In this nook, there is a small sofa, perfect for three children squashed together, or one adult sprawled out comfortably, or one adult and one child sitting and reading. A tiny endtable perches in front of it, laden with books and a pair of ceramic mugs.

One of these mugs has a sloppily painted star on it. This mug belongs to Sister Simplice.

Fantine regards the mugs for a moment, then looks up and regards Simplice, who is still peering myopically at her current book. Then she clears her throat.

Simplice blinks, settles her glasses more securely on her nose, and looks down and smiles. “Yes, Fantine?”

“I need to tell you something.”

An hour passes. The sunlight creeps steadily down the opposite wall, where it illuminates a fat sleepy spider snug in her web.

“Well,” says Simplice, finally.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” says Fantine. She fidgets with the hem of her sleeve. “It’s just, I didn’t want you to worry –”

Simplice smiles. Wistful. “When you wrote me that letter telling me you didn’t want to meet inside the station, I worried a little already.”

“I’m sorry,” Fantine murmurs wretchedly. “I just, if they knew, who knows what they would have done, I’m so lucky that they haven’t guessed already and told other people about it, I mean – I mean, look what almost happened to Fauchelevent.”

“Monsieur Fauchelevent,” Simplice gently corrects.

“Monsieur Fauchelevent. … Sister, they’ll find out eventually, won’t they? I can’t hide the orphanage forever, can I? Not unless I find some magical family to adopt me, and how likely is that?”

Simplice is silent for a moment. Then she sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers, much as I wish I did.” She looks at Fantine. “Maybe there isn’t a right answer. God knows there are enough situations like that in the world.”

“That doesn’t exactly help, Sister,” Fantine mutters, glum.

“Well,” Simplice says. “You can either hide it for as long as you can, or you can get it over with quickly, I suppose.” And, when Fantine doesn’t answer, she kisses the girl’s forehead and murmurs, “Whichever you think best. We certainly won’t hold it against you.”

Fantine doesn’t like either option. She sighs gustily, unhappily, and reaches for her mug of chocolat, and curls back up on the sofa tucked against the warm narrow figure of Simplice, and watches the sunlight on the bookshelves disappear into the evening.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marianne issues a challenge. Fantine accepts.

**13** **Février** **, 1970. Beauxbatons.**

Marianne Bahorel is loud and brash and in a different House, but that doesn’t stop her from acting like the older sister Fantine never had. During lunch she swoops in and takes a seat at the Pathos table, straddling the bench, and ruffles Fantine’s hair. “Hé, kid. How’s it going?”

“Potions is a bitch,” Fantine replies, amiable, “but we have Magizoology after lunch, so that’s good.”

“Magizoology? What unit are you on?”

“Fairies and pixies.” Fantine digs in her canvas bag and pulls out her schedule. “We’re going on a field trip next class, to look at the pixies in the west lawn and observe their behavior.”

“Make sure he has you look at the topiary of Robespierre,” says Marianne. “Oh, and make sure you brush up on your Stunning Charm.”

Fantine eyes her, speculative. Marianne winks and slips an apple into her bag, presumably a snack for later. “Trust me. You’re going to need it.”

“Sounds more like a prank to me than good advice,” says Marthe.

Marianne laughs. “No, that’s not a prank. You’d know if it was a prank.”

“Oh?” Marthe crosses her arms, and a skeptical look crosses her freckled face. “Then what’s a prank sound like?”

Marianne rolls her eyes, shrugs, throws her hands up all in one gesture of careless ambivalence. “I don’t know. Sneak out into the woods on a full moon.”

“What!” says Dahlia, disbelieving. “That’s what you call a prank?”

“Technically it’s a dare,” Marianne concedes, “but dares definitely fall under the category of pranks.”

“But who would ever do that? That’s dumb!” says Dahlia. “Besides, it’s not allowed. The Headmaster strictly forbids it. We’d – we’d be kicked out of school!”

“Duh,” says Marianne. “It wouldn’t be a prank if it didn’t get you in trouble.” Then, slyly, she adds, “If you got caught, anyway.” 

And then, like an afterthought – “You know, tonight’s a full moon.” 

Marthe and Dahlia can see the look on Fantine’s face. “Oh, no,” says Marthe, “don’t even think about it.”

“You’d get expelled!” whines Dahlia. “And then you’d have to – you’d have to go to Durmstrang, or Hogwarts, or some other horrible foreign school, and we’d never see you again ever.”

“What could happen?” says Fantine. “I’m good at sneaking around, and anyway it’s not like there’s a werewolf hiding out there waiting to rip my throat out, or something.”

**13 Février, 1970. The Pyrenees.**

Twilight paints the lawns and leafless gardens with soft grays and purples, and Fantine darts from bush to bush until she reaches the edge of the forest, pale stark branches reaching up to the gently glowing sky. It looks far prettier than it feels.

Beauxbatons is nestled in the saddle between two mountains; the forest, then, carpets the upward inclines save for patches of bare rock. At this time of the year, frost crackles on the ground and on the bark of trees, and the wind whipping through the naked branches makes a soughing sound that scratches at the edge of hearing. Wind is far worse than snow; Fantine shivers despite her thick wooly scarf and heavy over-cloak, and is glad of her dragonskin gloves.

Something rustles behind her. She whips around, her wand half-drawn, and then relaxes.

“Sorry,” says Marianne. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, it’s okay,” says Fantine. She puts her wand away again. “What are you doing here?”

Marianne shrugs – a self-conscious movement, incongruous on this tall boisterous teenager. “You’re – look, I can’t just say dumb shit like that and then expect you to just sit in your room doing your homework. You know? You’re a kid. And I’m gonna be a prefect next year. I have to be more responsible.”

“You know, you didn’t actually dare me to do it,” says Fantine.

“I might as well have,” says Marianne. She pulls her cloak tighter against the wind. “Myriel would skin me alive if I’d just left you on your own.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” says Fantine, but doubt creeps into her voice. “Isn’t he just a kind of senile old man? Like Father Christmas?”

Marianne puts a gloved hand on Fantine’s shoulder.

“Believe me, kid – don’t underestimate him.”

Chilled beyond the wind, Fantine looks up at the setting sun. “Should we go back? It’s not that dark yet. We could be back inside the castle before anything happens.”

“… Yeah. Let’s go.”

They’re almost back to the topiary labyrinth on the southern corner of the west lawn when they see a figure creeping past the greenhouses. Even from here, the way the figure sneaks and darts but only looks around momentarily before changing positions screams to Fantine that this person, whoever they are, has done this before.

“They’re heading to the forest,” breathes Marianne, crouched beside her. “That – that looks like Valjean.”

“What?” says Fantine. She peers up over the manicured hedge. “But I thought Valjean was a goody-goody who never did anything against the rules.”

Marianne lets out a short huff of laughter. “Valjean makes his own rules.”

“But what does he do out there? He looks like he’s come out here at night a million times!”

Marianne glances down at her. “Look, I’m not – I’m not gonna make your decision for you. If you want to stay and find out, I’ll come with, but with God as my witness I’m not going to be the one to drag you into more trouble.”

“If you don’t want to come, you don’t have to,” says Fantine. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know that, kid, okay?” Marianne grips her shoulder firmly, serious, and then a flash of teasing comes back into her eyes. “But I sure as hell aren’t going to let you find out all the juicy gossip on your own.”

“Well. Okay then.” Fantine turns back to the figure slipping into the trees. “Let’s go.”

The sky darkens more quickly now, as the sun slips behind the mountain, and the first stars begin to peek out through the faint gauzy blanket of clouds as the girls follow Valjean into the forest, slipping over the dry hard ground and clambering over tree roots and rocks up the steadily inclining slope. Valjean, far ahead, is a moving black outline in the purple of the trees; either he decided not to light his wand, or he did not bring it, but either way he knows exactly where he’s going. Marianne and Fantine, behind, pant and stumble and begin to sweat despite the whipping cold. Marianne has been notching trees with her wand, to help them on their way back. Other than the occasional scrape of magic against wood, the harsh labor of breathing and climbing, and the occasional swear as one of them slips, the forest is eerily silent.

Then the light of the full moon reaches out deft fingers and touches the treetops with silver.

The figure ahead of them drops to his knees and begins to shake – visibly, even from thirty feet away – and, as a low painful moan rises through the air, dread bubbles up through Fantine’s stomach thick and hot.

“No,” she whispers, clutching Marianne’s arm hard. “No, he can’t.”

“Fuck,” says Marianne. In the stark moonlight the older girl’s face is a rictus of horror. “Fuck, _fuck_ , let’s go.”

The moan spirals up, becomes higher and more ragged. The figure struggles and then, with a sudden bone-crunching sound that wrenches Fantine like a knife in the gut, it shifts, hideous, misshapen. Valjean – if he can be called Valjean anymore – throws back his head and screams, and mid-scream it turns into a howl.

“Let’s _go!_ ” Marianne scream-whispers. Her wand cuts a circle in the air with a “ _Protego locomor!_ ” and then they are off, suddenly, Marianne running as fast as she can down the slope towards the castle, Fantine yanked along behind her. The dwindling howls of pain and anguish follow them down until, abruptly, they cut off. The new, terrifying silence spurs them on faster.

The marks in the wood that Marianne had cut are of no use to them now, because they have no time; and the darkness, which before had seemed benign, has become their worst enemy. They slip and fall down rocks, and haul each other up with clinging clawlike fingers, and they do not look back for fear of what they might see, and they do not stop until they have dashed through the doors of the castle and slammed them shut.

They collapse against the cold stone wall, gasping and heaving for breath. Marianne drags a shaking hand down her face. “Shit. _Shit!_ That – well, that makes sense now.”

“What, Myriel forbidding students to go into the forest?” Fantine giggles, hysterical, too loud. “Yeah! He doesn’t want our faces to get bitten off by a fucking werewolf! - I can't believe it's _Valjean!_ ”

“Shh!” Marianne hisses, clamping a hand over Fantine’s mouth. “Prefects patrol the corridors at night. Imagine if someone overheard!”

“Yes,” drawls a voice. “Just imagine.”

They turn, slowly. And there, his wooden features flickering in the lamplight, is Javert.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javert and Headmaster Myriel have a conversation; Fantine keeps a secret.

**14 Février, 1970. Beauxbatons.**

“What were you thinking!” 

Javert points a violent trembling finger at Marianne, who flinches but is otherwise still. “You see! You thought she was responsible enough to be a prefect, she – she almost let a student get mauled by a werewolf!”

The old man blinks impassively.

“A _werewolf_ , Headmaster! They could have been _killed!_ ”

Dimly Javert knows that he should not be shouting. Dimly he knows that he will have to turn over his prefect’s badge for such blatant subordination, and even if Myriel does not ask it of him he will do so. Dimly he knows that later he will feel humiliated. But in the moment, apoplectic with rage, he cannot stop himself.

“And what would happen if the werewolf had not stayed in the forest? What if it had followed them into the castle? How many students would have died because you let a werewolf run around free!”

“That is enough,” says Headmaster Myriel calmly. He peers over his glasses at Marianne. “Mademoiselle, I trust your guilt has punished you quite enough already.”

Marianne nods mutely.

“You used your judgment when you could, and if it had not been for you, yes, I rather imagine that the young lady would have been in far deeper trouble.” Myriel settles his glasses on his nose more securely, a brief fussy movement. “Therefore you will not be expelled.”

Javert opens his mouth to object and Myriel holds up a hand, silencing him. “As for you, young man, we will talk privately.” He pulls out a small notebook and writes a few lines, then tears out the page neatly and hands it to Marianne. “Your punishment. I trust you will use your full discretion when explaining to your head teacher.”

“Yes, Headmaster.” Marianne bobs a short nod, almost casual, though her voice is fervent. “Thank you, Headmaster.”

She leaves, and as soon as the door shuts behind her Javert opens his mouth again – and when Myriel again holds up his hand to silence him, Javert boils over.

“Monsieur, with all due respect, you have harbored a Dark creature in this school for six years,” he spits.

“Will you allow me to explain?” Myriel asks, calmly. When Javert gives a brief grudging nod, Myriel continues, “This cannot be easy for you, Javert, but -”

“Can’t be _easy?_ _Monsieur – !_ ”

“Young man,” Myriel says again. His voice is still calm, but there is a thread of iron in it, like a metal dowel wrapped in cotton batting. “If you interrupt, then I will not be able to explain fully, and I believe it would be to both our benefits if I did so.”

Javert simmers, but reluctantly nods again, and keeps his silence.

“Very good. Now. I will tell you a story, then, and perhaps you will see my reasons.”

The tale Myriel tells, in a low compassionate voice, is the tale of Jean Valjean as Javert had suspected for so many years. Valjean was the boy in Toulon – the boy who had shielded his baby sister from a werewolf’s bite and become a werewolf himself, whose family had picked up and left for fear of a mob, not once but several times. A boy, and a mother, and a tiny sister growing up in a monster’s shadow.

“It was Madame Valjean who explained to me that not only did she fear the deprivation of her son’s education, but her daughter’s by guilt of association,” says Myriel. He takes off his glasses and polishes them with the sleeve of his robe, and continues. “The family is quite poor, and the lady makes her living among Moldus – they of course have no idea of the lad’s condition, and would not suspect as we do. But she wishes better for her children. Thus we came to an agreement; that, once a month at the full moon, young Jean would have full use of the forest from sunset to sunrise, and the rest of the student body banned from the forest at all times so that no one would come to harm. And I must say, for six years running there have been no problems.” He glances up at Javert and settles his spectacles on his nose once more. “At least, until Mlle Bahorel and Mlle Louet decided they would ignore the rules.”

“And what makes you so certain that this is the first and only time that this would happen?” asks Javert, urgently. “You can’t have expected -- students are nosy little bastards, I should know, Monsieur, I’m one of them. How can you possibly have expected that for eight years no one would accidentally –”

“My dear boy,” says Myriel, “no one has been hurt. You need not worry on that account.”

“Sir, I must protest!”

“What is it you protest?”

“No one else knows? Not even the other professors? _They_ at least should know that they risk their lives once a month!”

“Madame Magloire knows,” Myriel says crisply. “She ensures that the boy is tended for any hurts he acquires in the night. As for any others, you may be assured they use their full discretion.”

“But it isn’t safe!”

“Javert,” Myriel says. He stands, and though Javert is a good head taller than the old man, there is an air of authority about him that height simply cannot match. “I have left the nature of Valjean’s condition a secret because I feared the mark of prejudice upon him. There are many who would not be so understanding, and if your reaction is anything to judge by, I would fear for his safety.”

Javert visibly recoils. “His safety – ? Monsieur, I am not calling for his execution!”

“Then what are you calling for?”

“His removal from this school!”

“Where else could he acquire an education with a safe outlet for his condition? Hmm? Do you think Hogwarts or Durmstrang would be so obliging?” There’s a hard glint in Myriel’s eye now. “This is his only hope. Will you begrudge him and his family their last safe haven? Have pity on him, Javert, and keep your silence.”

 

**16 Février, 1970. Beauxbatons.**

Fantine now understands Marianne’s warning words regarding Myriel. He was kind – kinder than she deserved, she knows – but those unblinking eyes, twinkling blue though they may have been, will follow her for a while.

She is uncharacteristically quiet in her classes, and at lunch when Dahlia and Marthe chatter about assigned readings and the outing in Magizoology to see the pixies, she picks at her food and glances over at the Ethos table, hot with guilt.

Valjean, a werewolf! But a werewolf that wishes he were still only a boy. Myriel did not tell her the details – it is very much not her business, Fantine understands – but his reticence, both about his scar and in general with strangers, makes much more sense now. The Incident with old Fauchelevent is now clearer than polished glass.

“What’s wrong?”

Marthe prods her with her wand, and jolts Fantine out of her reverie. “You’ve hardly touched your food. Is something wrong?”

“—No. No, nothing is wrong.” Fantine shovels a forkful of food into her mouth, chews, smiles brittle-bright. “See?”

“Yeah, right,” says Dahlia. “You’ve been far away on some cloud, not here.”

“Daydreaming about a boooy?” Marthe drawls.

“Yeah,” says Fantine, grateful for an excuse. “Yup, just can’t stop dreaming about ‘em.”

“Which one?”

“Never Delacour. He’s too stuffy for La Fantine.”

“Théo Delacour wouldn’t give me the time of day,” says Fantine through her potatoes. “Besides, he’s too short.”

“Luc Clairmont,” says Dahlia, her lashes low on her cheeks. “ _He_ gives her the time of day.”

“Yeah, to tickle the back of my neck with his quill in Potions!”

“Didn’t you know that’s how boys show their affection?” says Marthe. She sits up straighter and peers down the Pathos table, where Luc Clairmont is busily doodling in the pages of a textbook. “All boys are like that. Pure savages.”

“Not all of them,” says Dahlia. She rests her chin on one hand. “Listolier is practically a poet.”

“Listolier! He’s ancient!”

“He’s only a fifth year,” says Fantine absently. She prods at her plate with her fork. “That’s only four years older.”

“Four years,” says Marthe, staring at them both. “That’s _ages_.”

“Your parents are eight years apart,” says Dahlia sulkily.

“That’s different! They didn’t meet in school!”

The rest of the day passes much more casually. Fantine remembers to smile, and properly, so that no one will think something is wrong, despite the thoughts churning in her head. But at the end of the day, sitting in squashy armchairs by the fireplace reading their textbooks, Marthe props her chin on her hand and gives Fantine a concerned look.

“You don’t have to lie to me, Fantine, something’s up, isn’t it?”

Fantine’s mouth thins a little. “It’s nothing, Marthe, don’t worry about it.”

“I know that look. It’s the look I get when my parents fight.” Fantine’s gut twists a little, but she doesn’t respond. “Why won’t you tell me?” Marthe asks, injured. “You can trust me.”

“I know I can,” says Fantine. She closes her book and smiles with her eyes. “It’s all right, Marthe. I promise.”

But that night, and the next day, Marthe is curiously quiet.

 

**28 Février, 1970. Beauxbatons.**

Guilt and anger roil together, and it’s all he can do to concentrate on his classes. In Potions he throws everything he has into studying the recipes, memorizing them ruthlessly and assembling them with such grimness that poor Pontmercy seems in a constant state of befuddlement. Painstakingly Javert attempts a grin at him, every so often, to assure him that he has not gone off the deep end; and each time, Pontmercy’s eyes behind his fogged-up glasses seem wider and wider with doubt.

Finally, at the end of class today, Pontmercy drags Javert into a smaller offshoot corridor and confronts him.

“Look!” he says, “look, I don’t know what he did this time, but you’ve got to talk to him!”

“Talk to who, Poncemercy,” says Javert – and that was cruel, for Pontmercy’s face reddens with embarrassment, and already he feels bad for saying it. Guilt flashes through him again, hot and heavy as lead, dragging him down. “I don’t need to talk to anybody.”

“You do!” Red and quivering and flustered though he is, Georges is undeterred, and his words come out in a torrent. “You always get miserable when you think of him, I know it, we’ve been in the same class for five years now and I know you think friends are silly things to have but I _know_ you, Javert, and you need to talk with him sooner or later or you will _burst_.”

Javert’s lip curls, and Pontmercy throws his hands up in exasperation. “Really! He seems like a fine and decent person, and after that debacle with Brujon and Fauchelevent at the end of September I’d be inclined to think him stellar! Truly! Except that you have never been wrong about anyone else – you’re a better judge of character than my grandmother’s old pitbull – so with him, I don’t know! I don’t know what to think.” He jabs a finger in Javert’s chest, hard. “So! You sort it out between you, I don’t know, I don’t care, just do it.”

Javert stares, first at the finger still jabbed at his chest, then at the puffing, wheezing face of Georges Pontmercy. It’s as if a tiny little fat terrier has weighed his chances and then decided to bite the ankle of a dire wolf anyway. Guilt stabs him again, and he shrugs, pretending indifference. “Fine. I’ll talk to him.”

“ _Good_.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javert and Valjean's first reckoning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is way shorter than normal, but I needed to publish some sort of update. I'm graduating in 3 days (help), so things are a bit hectic and I probably won't be back to the normal schedule next week, but I'll try to get back to normal by the end of the month. Thank you for being so patient!

**1 Mars, 1970. Beauxbatons.**

They have no classes together. They share no extracurriculars. They are, in fact, completely isolated from each other. There is no way that Javert will be able to pass this off as anything other than it is; and he knows, intrinsically, that the gossipmongers will turn this charcoal into a diamond in mere minutes from all the pressing they will do.

He does it anyway. Georges was right, damn him; if this festers any longer, Javert thinks he may explode.

In the doldrums after classes and before dinner, Javert finds himself on the third floor of the library just in time to intercept Valjean on his daily ramble around the castle.

Valjean stops, nearly trips over his big feet, straightens his robe. “Good evening,” he says politely.

“Evening,” Javert says. It’s like forcing molasses through a strainer. “I just wanted to tell you something. I feel you should know.”

Valjean tips his head to one side, eyeing him with an expression of exaggerated caution. Javert would very much like to laugh, but perhaps that’s not the best course of action.

He reaches out to touch the nearest bookshelf and drums his fingers against the old wood.

“… Yes?” Valjean says, still watching him carefully.

“… You should be careful about who sees you go out at night,” Javert says at last.

Valjean makes a brief choked noise. His eyes are wide and panicked, and they dart around, looking to see if anyone is nearby eavesdropping, looking for a way out. “You – you saw –”

“No. Someone else did.” At the pleading, almost tearful look on Valjean’s face, Javert relents a little. “They’ve promised not to tell. Myriel made them promise. No one else knows.”

“Who … ? How?”

“Bahorel and Louet. They were sneaking out after dark last full moon, on a _dare_ , and they saw you.”

Valjean looks stunned for a moment, and not just because he’s just found out three people know his biggest secret. “What, Louet? Fantine Louet? Short, blonde hair, Pathos, right? She – she snuck out? I thought she was a little goody-two-shoes.”

“What, like you?” Javert asks. Valjean flinches. “Like I said, you ought to be more careful. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened – and you’re lucky, you know, because they’re both alive and not missing any limbs.”

“What am I supposed to do?” says Valjean suddenly. He glares up at Javert, and Javert is surprised by how much it bothers him to see tears glittering in those clear blue eyes. “Every month I’m afraid, I’m so afraid that something like that will happen. And I wouldn’t even know it had happened until afterwards, because I’m not _me_ then.”

… _He’s just a kid._

The thought is a surprise.

Valjean is only one year older than Javert. They’re _kids_. And he’s been living with this nightmare just as long as Javert has, but worse, because instead of dreaming of teeth, he _is_ the teeth.

“Well,” says Javert finally. “I guess your luck will just have to hold out.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fantine has a Terrible Awful No Good Very Bad Day. Georges Pontmercy, the Huffliest of Puffs, has a kind word.

**9 Mars, 1970. Beauxbatons.**

Well, at least there’s dessert, if nothing else.

Fantine moodily pokes at her apple tart with her fork. The 5/20 on her Charms exam is still prodding at the back of her mind; her left arm is sore from where she scraped it this morning tripping in the Potions storeroom; and _something_ in her shoe has been poking at the arch of her foot since lunchtime.

Fantine nibbles a slice of tart, and glares into nothingness. Five out of twenty. Five more points and she would have passed, but no. She supposes that’s what happens when the only time you’ve spent studying for a test was the three minutes before the professor handed out the test sheet, but still! How embarrassing. Even Dahlia got an 11/20, and she was out last night with Marc Thierry.

“He’s so dreamy,” Dahlia croons. Marthe’s eyebrows have almost reached her hairline. “He’s such a good kisser.”

“We’re twelve,” says Marthe. “What are you doing kissing Marc Thierry? We’re _twelve_.”

“You’re twelve. I’m thirteen,” says Dahlia smugly.

“Ouais, because your birthday’s in December and your parents didn’t want you to be the youngest person in the grade. Anyway, what happened to Listolier? I thought you were all about him.”

“He got a girlfriend.” Dahlia pouts, then brightens again. “Thierry’s not such a bad consolation prize, though.”

“I’ve gotta go,” says Fantine abruptly, setting her fork down with a clatter.

They turn to look at her. “Hé, aren’t you going to finish your tart?” asks Marthe.

“Not hungry.” She stands and shoulders her bookbag. “I’ll see you in the common room later, okay?”

“See you,” they call, and she turns and walks smack into someone walking away from the Logos table.

She stumbles back. Looks up. Feels the flush heat up her cheeks, her ears, the blood pounding in her head with embarrassment. The person she’s bumped into is tall, very gangly, with thick-lensed glasses that he’s gingerly adjusting on the end of his pointed nose.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and oh _no_ , that did it – she can feel the lump of tears clogging her throat and voice, she’s about to start crying in public, damn it –

“No, I’m sorry,” says the tall boy quickly. “I – here, come with me.”

He gently takes her shoulder, and through the embarrassed tears misting her vision she lets him lead her out of the dining hall and into a side corridor, where he offers her a light blue handkerchief.

“My name is Georges Pontmercy,” he says.

She blows her nose ferociously, and then looks back up at him and gives him a watery smile. “And I’m Fantine.”

“I’m sorry for bumping into you. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“No, no, it’s my fault, I just –” She blows her nose again with a honking sound, winces, and scrubs at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I’ve had a. Not a very good day, I guess.”

 

**9 Mars, 1970. Beauxbatons.**

Javert doesn’t eat dessert. He doesn’t see the point of it. Food is to be eaten in order to fuel the machine that is the human body, and that’s just about all that can be said for it. Sometimes he’ll take pleasure in a cup of coffee, black with two spoonfuls of sugar to cut the bitterness, but that’s about as epicurean as he gets.

Instead he patrols the corridors immediately after dinner. It’s a good way to catch out anyone who might try an after-dinner canoodle on the grounds. Maybe you wouldn’t be surprised, but you’d be amazed by how many people he’s caught being indiscreet in a corridor or behind a bush. Nothing like the sight of a scowling Javert to douse the fires of teenage passion.

“—out of twenty, and even Dahlia did better, I mean, Dahlia _Bernard_ , I mean, she’s got the attention span of a fly!”

“Well, that just means you need to study a little more next time, that’s all. Did you talk to the professor?” Pontmercy. But who is he talking to?

“Maxime? Oh. Well. Maybe I should.”

It’s that blonde girl, that Pathos girl who snuck out with Bahorel last month – Louet. Javert wouldn’t have figured that a little rule-breaker like Louet would hang out with Pontmercy, but there’s a lot of human socialization that Javert hasn’t figured out.

Javert sort of tunes out at this point. They aren’t talking about anything that’s against the rules, and they aren’t canoodling – thank _God_ , because _there’s_ a mental image he wishes he hadn’t thought of – they’re just talking.

“… You remind me of Javert, a little.”

What?

“How?” Louet asks. The tone of her voice is something in between curious and incredulous.

“Well, you’re both so angry. He bottles it up, you know.” Pontmercy sighs. “Like a Molotov cocktail. Only he doesn’t let it explode. … Well, most of the time he doesn’t let it explode.”

“I explode all the time,” says Louet. Then: “No, that’s – that’s a lie. I can’t explode, not anymore. People don’t …”

She falls silent. The only sounds are the rustles of portraits and the shuffling of feet.

“People don’t like it when I explode. They expect me to smile and make nice.”

“I’m sorry,” says Pontmercy.

_Smile_. _Make nice_. Words like those have been Javert’s inner mantra for years. When you stick out in a bad way, like Javert – or like Valjean – you make yourself as inconspicuous as possible. Anger is bad, because it draws attention, and not the good kind. Anger at the people who have power over you, even more so. He wonders briefly how Louet would stick out, and then decides that it doesn’t matter.

Javert doesn’t like thinking he has anything in common with a rule-breaker like Louet. Dispassionately he prunes away the fellow-feeling like a gardener with an unruly bush, and he moves on. Their voices dwindle away into the background.

He surprises a pair getting cozy in the library stacks, and their mortified expressions almost make him smile.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Musings on Olympe Maxime, and a new direction for Jean Valjean.

**12 Mars, 1970. Beauxbatons.**

Professor Olympe Maxime, the Charms teacher, is a very tall woman. If she were not as graceful and stylish as she is, she would loom over the other professors; but as she is, she simply outshines them.

It’s a carefully cultivated appearance. When Jean is helping to tidy up charmed pincushions or smashed teacups in between classes, sometimes he notices Professor Maxime with a compact mirror in her hand, frowning at her reflection. The pristine curls never have a single hair out of place. The maroon lipstick is never smudged. The robes are never wrinkled, and the heeled boots are never scuffed. Her voice is low but soft and musical, and she never shouts, even when Bahorel gets caught passing notes to Gillenormand for the fifth time in the same class period.

Once, a year ago when Jean first started working as Professor Maxime’s assistant, some tactless sniggering student asked her whether or not she had giants in her ancestry, and if that was why she was so tall.

Professor Maxime’s mouth pursed. Her expression, calm as ever, became frosty.

“I have big bones,” she said, and that was the end of it.

Jean, who has a secret of his own, has never asked her that question himself. She might tolerate it from him – after all, she knows his secret, and might appreciate that a lonely teenager needs a role model – but Jean knows a sensitive nerve when he sees one.

Still, if it’s true and Professor Maxime is part giant, that’s no indication of Jean’s own future. She is only part giant, and Jean is all werewolf.

Jean, the waxing moon pulling at his bones, asks Professor Maxime if he might spend the lunch period grading papers. Professor Maxime smiles, sympathetic, and acquiesces.

**17 Mars, 1970. Beauxbatons.**

“It’s no good, Professor,” mumbles Jean. He’s perched once more on a pile of books in Professor Mabeuf’s study, nursing a mug of tea like a grudge. “This is going to follow me wherever I go. I can’t stop it, I can’t escape it. It’s a miracle this is the first time somebody accidentally saw me, and even more of a miracle nobody’s been hurt. What am I going to _do_ when school’s over? How am I going to get a _job?_ Nobody in their right mind would ever hire a werewolf!”

“You have some time,” says Professor Mabeuf gently. “You’ve got two years to go before you graduate.”

“To do what? To – to go door to door, begging people to give me a, a spare shack for me to lock myself in once a month? ‘Oh, it’s no trouble that one day out of every month you won’t be able to come in to work, not even the same day every month, oh, wait just one moment young man, it follows the full moon, doesn’t it? What a coincidence!’ ”

He takes a long pull from the mug. “And that’s – that’s only the start of the problem, because even if I fool my bosses, there’s no guarantee that a neighbor won’t accidentally stumble in on me and get mauled to death! Or eaten!”

Hysteria bubbles up into laughter –

“I don’t want to eat anybody! But I might!”

—and vanishes, leaving him feeling cold and sad and eight years old again. 

_Maman, I don’t want to be a monster._  
_Sweetheart, darling, you aren’t one.  
_ _Then why do we have to leave?_

Professor Mabeuf takes a book from his desk. He smiles, sadly, and leafs through the book. Then he holds it out to Jean.

“Perhaps Jean Valjean won’t be able to get a job because it would be too easy to tell he is a werewolf,” says Professor Mabeuf quietly. “But another young lad, with no distinguishable scars and no history, will attract far less attention.”

The open page is titled “Polyjuice Potion.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief intermission while the operator changes reels.

**Entracte: Lettres, l’été de 1970.**

_Coucou!_

_I hope your summer is going well. Please try not to get into too much trouble without me!_

_I’ve told my little brother all about you, of course, and he seems vastly interested in someone else who’s just as much of a trickster as he is. Paul’s never broken a school rule as big as the one you and I broke, but that’s only because this autumn will mark his first year at Beauxbatons! Haha. Jokes aside, I think you and he will get along just fine._

_This summer Maman is teaching me how to knit. She says it’s an invaluable skill, perfect for the creation of scarves and hats. I say I’m terrible with needles; she says someone’s got to carry on the tradition of Family Knitter; I say baby sister Claire’s got that sorted! Maman agrees but says I should learn anyway. So you’d better watch out, I shall be making you a lumpy something-or-other out of yarn for Christmas this year. Perhaps I shall make it putrid lime green, or would you prefer orange?_

_If you want to catch a train to Toulouse and spend a week down here with us, Maman says that would be the cat’s knees, or whatever the English say. She promises to make her famous croquembouche – there, that’ll convince you to come to us promptly!_

_Hope you are well._

_Marianne_

 

_Chère Fantine,_

_I hope your summer is going well, and I hope the moldus are not treating you too badly !! If they are, give them a Leg-Locker Curse from me. Or punch them, you seem to like that better. But either way, make them sorry !!!_

_Maman and Papa are getting a divorce, I can hardly believe it. We can’t afford lawyers but they’re stalking the place anyway, they keep asking me whether I want to live with my mother or my father. I tell them it’s all one to me, they’re both horrible. You should see the looks on their faces ! I wish I could draw properly, then I could show you._

_Now, see, you’re going to start feeling sorry for me, I can feel it through the paper. Stop that. I’m cheerful about it, really I am. This way they’ll finally stop throwing things at each other, since they’ll have to live in different houses._

_You know, when I get married, I’m going to marry a prince and we’ll live in a great big castle, and we’ll never fight. I’ll be damned if I’m not getting the castle ! You’ll see, by the time I’m grown up and ready to be married I’ll be a redhaired Cendrillon, and they’ll trip over themselves asking for my hand. Won’t that be a sight !!_

_Marthe F._

* * *

_Marianne,_

_I would love to come over for a visit! Your mother sounds like a very pleasant lady, and your brother Paul sounds like a terror – I should be happy to meet them both. My sister says possibly a week in July, after Bastille Day, should do well – but of course if a different time would work better for you, let me know!_

_Speaking of your brother, you must tell me if he is handsome, that way I can make up my mind whether to marry him or not. If he’s an absolute menace and I’m an absolute menace, you can imagine that our children would destroy the world. Or at least, cause every Beauxbatons teacher to resign at once. O, the Pandemonium._

_My summer is going well enough. No knitting for me, just mucking about and terrorizing the locals. And now of course I must spend my days planning and plotting what horrifying Christmas gift I can make you ~~in revenge~~. Does snot yellow sound good?_

_See you soon(ish)!_

_Fantine_

 

_Marthe,_

_Punching them means I don’t have to worry as much about whether or not they’ll tell their parents! Can you imagine some snotty moldu kid hopping back home and telling his mother he got jinxed? Besides, punching is like a stake in the heart, it works on everybody._

_I’m sorry about your parents. I wish I could punch them, one bloody nose each._

_You know, I don’t know if I’ll ever get married. I joke about it, but I’m not certain there’ll ever be anybody I could actually see spending the rest of my life with. You know? Someone who I could raise a kid with, who wouldn’t just leave as soon as it’s not convenient anymore. I don’t know if I want to get married, but I definitely want a kid, at least one. I’ll teach them to be just as terrifying as their maman!_

_I hope the lawyers aren’t too annoying. If they are, just call me, and I'll scratch their eyes out. Write soon!_

_Fantine_

* * *

_La plus belle Fantine,_

_Sad to see you go, but so glad you came! We should definitely do this again next year – Maman adores you, Claire won’t stop talking about you. I think she actually wants to be you when she grows up. She’s in the room with me, she just told me to tell you “hello” from her. So, Hello Fantine!_

_& it’s official – I just got my prefect’s badge. All Shall Fear Me. Now of course that means I must start being capital-R responsible, so no more pranks for me. You and Paul shall have to uphold the family tradition, with as much yelling  & running & general commotion as possible._

_Stay cool in the summer, and I’ll see you again in a month!_

_Marianne_


End file.
